Your Highwater Mark

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I want to write about something that’s fascinated me for some time –
What I call a person’s Highwater Mark.

What’s a person’s Highwater Mark?
It’s the zenith of their life’s achievement.
It’s the point beyond which they never reach.

Most of us achieve our Highwater Mark in our 40s.
Some earlier, some later.

What’s my Highwater Mark?
Making small personal films and writing novels.

George Miller’s Highwater Mark is making big spectacular action movies.
Bill Gates’s Highwater Mark is creating Microsoft.
Volodymyr Zelensky’s Highwater Mark is being President of Ukraine.
Paul Selig’s Highwater Mark is channeling books.
Nicole Kidman’s Highwater Mark is being an A-List actress.

A person’s Highwater Mark has nothing to do with success.
Success comes and goes.
It has nothing to do with achieving more.
Most of us normally achieve more within the limitations of our Highwater Mark.

George Miller will no doubt make more big budget action movies.
Bill Gates will continue with his philanthropic work.
Zelensky will always be defined by being President of Ukraine.
Paul Selig will continue to channel books, and he most probably will do other things too, but his channelled work will be his Highwater Mark.
Same with Nicole Kidman. Her Highwater Mark will be her status as an extraordinary actress.

Me? I’m still lapping at my Highwater Mark but I doubt that I’ll push further up the beach. It’s not like I’m going to direct a Marvel movie.

A person’s Highwater Mark is that place on the beach where the Spring Tide reaches. Subsequent tides won’t ever reach that far.

We each inevitably find the Highwater Mark in our lives, most of us without ever realising it.
This is as far as we’re ever going to go.
It’s this far and no further.

And as we get older, we normally recede from our Highwater Mark. Very few of us take our Highwater Mark further up the beach.

But it’s possible.
It’s possible to unlock further potential within us.
But first we have to acknowledge that we have that potential.

As we get older, we get tired.
Or worse still, complacent.
Or even worse still, we get damaged.
Damaged by the vicissitudes of life.
We don’t seek to over-reach.
We live too much in the past.

But it’s possible to establish a new Highwater Mark.
To unlock that unlimited potential.
We just dream bigger dreams.
Further up the beach…


6 thoughts on “Your Highwater Mark”

  1. I think I’ll just buck the trend. I have raised the Highwater Mark many times over the years and intend to keep pushing it up a little at a time. I enjoy reinventing myself 🙂

    Liked by 1 person

      • I’ve evangelised and helped in a little in introducing lots of new technologies in telecommunications, mobile computing, retail scanning, EFTPOS, and more. Served the community in many ways including Census and Elections, which included helping unemployed people yo get work experience and temporary pay without jeopardising their benefits. Worked with ethnic groups to gain recognition of themselves, in an environment where they didn’t trust government, but showed them ways that they could collaborate and become part of the system without risk, even though many were illegal immigrants. Helped run a music centre to allow kids who couldn’t afford musical instruments to get free tuition and peppercorn rental of instruments. Next project is to lead and run two large community centres with all that comes with it. Courses, foodbank, skill sharing, safe place for teenagers and much more. Just a few of the things I do. Not bragging, just saying there is always more we can do, for our selves and for others, just pushing that high waterlevel mark up, a nudge at a time, and trying to take lots of people on the journey.

        Liked by 2 people

  2. WordPress is being increasingly unhelpful, and I think that’s why so many of our friends and wonderful contributors below the line are no longer engaging as we once would.

    Such a shame — it’s a good platform, but ordinary and extraordinary good people unsurprisingly balk before these hoops and loops.

    ————–

    As to my own, well that was near Astorga on my 1994 — accepting the Truth and Reality of God is the most joyful experience of them all.

    Conversion from Divine Intervention is an experience of absolute pure love.

    High Water is God Himself and if we can ever be taken into His Forgiveness.

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    • I agree about WordPress Julian. Most of the interaction now happens on social media, like Facebook or Instagram. Irrespective, I would say that your Highwater Mark is that of a dedicated and committed pilgrim. How you reach that status is secondary to the status itself in my concept.

      Liked by 1 person

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